As student protests against racial discrimination spread across Mizzou, Yale, Ithaca, and Smith campuses, the predictable backlash has come from many sides. While even some ostensible liberal allies have leaned on a “coddled students” narrative, a good deal of opposition from the Right has dealt in outright lies about protester motives and liberal usage of the racist dogwhistle. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has entered that fray now. Politico reports:
"Well we're being a little bit too tolerant, I guess you might say, accepting infantile behavior. I don't care which side it comes from. To say that I have the right to violate your civil rights because you're offending me is un-American. It is unconstitutional," Carson reacted. "And the officials at these places must recognize that and have the moral courage to stand up it. Because if they don't, it will grow, it will exacerbate the situation and we will move much further toward anarchy than anybody can imagine, and much more quickly."
Carson then compared the situation to a failing marriage in which a married couple stops talking before they get divorced.
"The next thing you know, their spouse is the devil incarnate," he added. "That's what's going on, and we cannot allow that in America."
These protests, by and large, have been mass displays of First Amendment rights.If Carson wants to continue the divorce metaphor, it’s hard to see a viable path to a successful relationship when one side gets called “infantile” every time they express concern about offensive things. Unfortunately, the disingenuousness of claiming to support free speech, but only in the case of bigoted free speech, is neither uncommon to Carson or to his party’s leadership.